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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22871557">answering machine and tempo</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmtlp/pseuds/tmtlp'>tmtlp</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>letters i'll never send [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stray Kids (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Crying, M/M, Post-Break Up, Sad, seungmin calls jisung and doesnt know what to say, this is just seungmin hurt ok!!! im sorry seung baby :( i love u</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:35:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22871557</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmtlp/pseuds/tmtlp</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>p.s. just maybe one day, I won’t have to listen to a dial and pretend. pretend that I can hear you say all the same things back to me.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Han Jisung | Han/Kim Seungmin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>letters i'll never send [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1436320</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>answering machine and tempo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="courier">[What’s up? It’s Jisung as you already know! I probably cannot take your call because I’m drowning in my music theory assignments and other stuff! You see, I am a very busy person, so… yeah! But! You can still leave me a message after...uh— a beep, I guess? I think so. And I’ll catch up with you later! Have a good daaaay~]</span>
</p><p>
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</p><p><em> Beep </em>.</p><p>
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</p><p>“Hello,—” He takes a deep breath, afraid his voice would betray him just like every other time, “uh, it’s Seungmin,”</p><p> </p><p>The realization didn’t kick in, it never does, not until Jisung’s “have a good day” ends and the beeping flew in. It was always the same.</p><p> </p><p>Today Kim Seungmin, just like every single Kim Seungmin before today, is still so foolish. So blinded, so hung up over something that he realized he cut loose.</p><p> </p><p>Today Kim Seungmin, just like every other Kim Seungmin before, is still as silent as ever after a greeting. It annoys him because he knows he shouldn’t be.</p><p> </p><p>Seungmin knows how many inks he had used to stain so many pages with words he prepared for Jisung. An apology he had practiced in his head thousands of times, one that he felt Jisung deserved hearing from here after all these times. Not that Jisung should accept it and forgive him. But he deserves a proper apology for what Seungmin’s done.</p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">jisung,</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em><span class="courier">hello, i would like to first apologize for my lack of comprehension when reading between the thin line that could probably save us both from.... this. From my fainthearted self who foolishly turned his back to his so—called ambitious dream and left you to pick up your love then walk away from me. i deserved that.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">and then, me, still as stupid as ever, chose to let you do so. just sitting here watching your back grew smaller mirroring your resounding footsteps slowly out of reach from my ears. funny enough, i let you. i let you and went back to write my lonely, pathetic script of life.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">i’m sorry.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>“I—” the words stops, just out of the canal to his throat. “I’m—”</p><p> </p><p>Kim Seungmin is still as foolish as ever.</p><p>
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</p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">hello, i’m sorry for not smiling at you that last day. when the sky seemed to lose its light, resembling a gray color while silver crystalline tears spill out from its lashes; enough amount for both of us to be drenched from it. it rained a lot after that day.... and somehow the cold concrete i walked on was soaked with scattered memories of your warm hugs as the raindrops created a faint sound of your songs, each cadence tugging my heartstrings as i keep walking. it’s cold, yet i could still feel your lips everywhere on me, it’s burning on my skin. the air was heavy with your unspoken words i could hear— then the wind blows and there’s your desperate sighs i wish i could erase. you’re— you’re gone.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">you’re gone yet i still found you everywhere.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>The silence remains.</p><p> </p><p>It has been 3 minutes of silence since Seungmin’s last words (which weren’t even proper words). It was eating him up, chewing on every cell in his body for him to disintegrate to pieces as the voicemail ends.</p><p> </p><p>Where were all the words he’d compose together down his book? He can picture every single word, but can’t put it alongside each other.</p><p>
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</p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">hello, how have you been? i— i know i don’t have the right to ask you this. but i’m guessing you’re getting better... i saw you today and you still looked like life when it’s in a good mood and i can hear you laugh— and it still sounds like a voice i knew by ear, a voice in the shower i remember waking up to with a smile on my face. it’s you. it’s you who took off my dark—colored glasses off and made me see everything. made me see you, and everything i thought was never there. you made me see it... and i admit that i took it for granted.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">every laugh, smile, loving words, honesty; i pretend you were okay— as i consume all the love there is you always gave me.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">i hate myself.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>The room is so still.</p><p> </p><p>That doesn’t mean Seungmin is.</p><p> </p><p>His head is playing different beats he ever heard Jisung played for him. With each song embodying different tempo, jumbling in his head disordering his soul from his body.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry…” Seungmin’s voice cracks at the last word. He doesn’t realize he’s been crying.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe he just needs to have Jisung tells him ‘it’s gonna be okay’— because he knows it will never be okay. </p><p>
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  <em> <span class="courier">hello, i know it’s not fair for me to call after all this time.... but i am falling apart. and the only thing i could recall is the memory of us sitting on my balcony at 3 a.m. watching the dawn rise and have you promised to take that beautiful orange, purple, blue colors and paint them in your song for me as you intertwined my hand with yours and kiss it.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">jisung,... i am falling apart. and i deserved it.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">this is how you’ve been feeling all this time, right?</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>Seungmin takes a deep breath after a deep breath. He knows he probably should hang up by now, but he can’t. He has so many words drafted in his head— he can’t— he can’t. He doesn’t know why.</p><p>
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</p><p><em> <span class="courier">hello, my name is sorrow and regret. and i like you and your bitter coffee and cheesy cheesecake, and everything else that reminds me of you. it’s like your soul is divided into small pieces and materialize all these things around me. i see you. and i know i’ve probably lost track of how old the days are— and there’s an infinte numbers of seconds and still so many sky between</span></em> <strike><em><span class="courier"> us </span></em></strike> <em><span class="courier"> you and me.</span></em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">but after all this time, it’s ironic and ridiculous for me to say this but, i still have a dream. i know you hate that phrase— but i do have a dream. a dream where i wake up to a world where you’re in my arms again.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">i’m sorry, that i hurt you and still want you back.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>“I’m sorry—” Seungmin chokes on the words. He knew this— knew the feeling.</p><p> </p><p>After all, it’s familiar, it’s been his companion for a while.</p><p>
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</p><p> </p><p>
  <em><span class="courier">hello, i promise i will never take anything— you, for granted ever again.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>“I—”</p><p>
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</p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">i will answer you every time, any day, any moment, any second— whenever you call. i will answer. just... maybe one day you’ll answer mine.</span> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">i love you, jisung. i do.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>“I love you—” Seungmin says before he can stop himself. He bit down his lip, tears won’t stop falling down now. </p><p> </p><p>Seungmin quickly presses 3, and just like that it ends. And Jisung would never be able to hear it, Seungmin doesn’t know how to feel about that.</p><p> </p><p>Relieved? Sad?</p><p> </p><p>Maybe one day he’ll be able to say it all. He needs time, it hurts (<em>Jisung was hurt too</em>, he thinks back to himself), but he needs to fix himself first.</p><p> </p><p>Fix the cluttering beats without a tempo in himself.</p><p> </p><p>Just maybe one day.</p><p> </p><p>One day,</p><p> </p><p>Seungmin will wake up and it will be okay.</p><p> </p><p>
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</p><p>
  <em> <span class="courier">p.s. just maybe one day, i won’t have to listen to a dial and pretend. pretend that i can hear you say all the same things back to me.</span> </em>
</p><p>
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</p><p>No one knows for how many rests.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this was impulsively written at 7am (its 8 now) because ive been stressed with college lately so i need a getaway!!</p><p>'rest' here actually means intervals of silence in pieces of music!! i think itd be fun to apply some music stuff in here though i have 0 knowledge about it jshjdks</p><p>if theres any errors let me know!! i know this is v short but ive been feeling seungsung lately so i just need to write abt my babies even though its angsty :c<br/>and i also have a seungbin fic coming up!! aaaa its taking too long bc im lazy and assignments are killing me pls anticipate 🥺 i hope u like this,,</p><p>and i have a cc if anyone wants to talk or say anything,,, maybe,,, idk <a href="https://curiouscat.me/tmtlp">cc: tmtlp</a> </p><p>a feedback is always appreciated!! thank u for stopping by and reading &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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